


Five Times Oliver Sykes Wanted to Tell Alexander Gaskarth He Loved Him and One Time He Did

by slpblue



Category: All Time Low, Bandom, Bring Me The Horizon
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - No Band, Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15953084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slpblue/pseuds/slpblue
Summary: Oli has a lot of love for Alex but the time doesn't ever seem to be right to tell him.





	Five Times Oliver Sykes Wanted to Tell Alexander Gaskarth He Loved Him and One Time He Did

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a couple of drabbles for my friend, but then I started thinking about it while I was walking to class and was like, hey why not make it a 5+1 fic? So I did that. And it turned into this angsty mess.
> 
> (Just to be clear, the +1 isn't the only or even the first time Oli has said I love you. Just the only time I wrote about here. He honestly prolly said it to him between each of the five, but for the sake of the format you can ignore that if you want.)

Five Times Oliver Sykes Wanted to Tell Alexander Gaskarth He Loved Him and One Time He Did

 

(1)

It was quiet in the kitchen. Oli could hear Alex’s _fucking_ clock tick away on the wall.  _Tch.  Tch.  Tch._   Judgment for how silent the space between them had become.

Alex sat with his hands folded on the table.  They were both acting like he wasn’t crying.

Oli leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, hunching down into himself and feeling defensive.  “I just want you to talk to me about things.”

_Tch.  Tch.  Tch.  Tch.  Tch._

Alex cleared his throat and sniffed.  “I know. I’m sorry.”  His voice cracked on the last syllable, giving out.

“I don’t like it when you ignore me.”  Oli was trying to push down the feeling that he was saying everything wrong.  He shifted his feet, crossing his ankles and then uncrossing them.  “I j—” he took a breath.  “I just want to help you.”

“I know.”  Alex cleared his throat again, voice scratchy. He was picking at the cuticle of his thumb.  Oli knew better than to tell him to stop, even when it started to bleed.  It wasn’t the time for this fight.

_Tch.  Tch._   The clock was scolding him.

Alex pressed his other thumb on top of the blood, wiping it away.

Oli could feel his anger and frustration melting away.  He didn’t want to fight, had been putting the confrontation off because he knew it would dissolve into hostility.  Oli pushed off from the counter and walked around the kitchen table, slowly pulling out the chair next to Alex and sitting down.  He reached for Alex’s hands.  “I l—” he stopped when Alex pulled away minutely.  He ran his thumb over the wood grain rather than across Alex’s knuckles like he wanted to.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Alex asked. He sounded stuffy.

“I made you cry.”

Alex laughed by blowing air out of his nose bitterly, looking away.  “You didn’t make me cry.  I do that well enough on my own.  I just can’t take the truth.”

“I could have said it better.”

Alex rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes.  “You shouldn’t have to.”

Oli wanted to tell Alex he loved him, wanted to cut through the tension.  The last time he’d tried like that though Alex had gone stiff, accused him of trying to manipulate the argument into being over, into Alex forgiving him.  The situation was completely different, but Oli didn’t want to do anything that would ruin the beginnings of the wary truce they were forming.  “Do you want me to order Thai?”

“You hate Thai.”

“You don’t.”

Alex sniffed.  “Sure.”  His voice still sounded thick, but he wasn’t crying anymore.

Oli stood, feeling warmth surge in his chest when Alex reached out to brush the side of his hand with his fingers as he went to find his phone.

 

(2)

Alex watched tv on the couch, half asleep.  It was late and he was wearing one of Oli’s giant sweaters, one of the three-tone ones that dwarfed both of them.

Oli stopped on the way to the shower—he’d just gotten back from the gym, somewhere else that Alex didn’t go anymore—to lean over the back of the couch and kiss Alex’s cheek.  “Hey babe.”

Alex hummed and leaned into the kiss, reaching back to try to curl his fingers into Oli’s hair, huffing when he remembered how short it was now.  Oli smiled at how cute he was.  Alex turned into the kiss and pressed his lips sleepily to the side of Oli’s mouth. “Hey yourself.”

“What’re you watching?”

“Some soap.  I don’t know what’s happening, but I think someone’s half-sister just slapped someone else’s ex-husband because someone _else’s_ best friend was being a bitch,” Alex replied absently, eyes back on the tv.

Oli nodded.  He went to run his hand through Alex’s hair, but Alex pulled away before he could.  “Go get your shower, you smell.”

Oli swallowed and made himself smile.  “You should come too.”  He wasn’t trying to be sexy.  Mostly he just wanted Alex to take a shower.  His hair had reached that level of greasy that indicated he hadn’t washed it in at least a week.

Alex just made a face, looking back over his shoulder.  He tried to turn the grimace into something more teasing.  “But you have cooties.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you _definitely_ already have my cooties by now.”

Shrugging, Alex turned back to the soap opera.  “You go ahead.  I’ll probably shower later.”

Oli knew the ‘probably’ meant ‘wouldn’t’, but he wasn’t willing to push it.  “How much is left of the show?”

“’bout ten minutes, wh—hey!”

Oli jumped over the back of the couch and landed half of top of Alex, pulling him around and into his lap. Oli wrapped his arms around Alex’s thin waist, the sweater bunching up and exposing a stripe of skin to the air. “I’ll watch the end with you.” Oli pressed a smile into Alex’s neck.

Alex whined, wriggling. He settled down after a couple of seconds, getting comfortable, and eased into Oli’s chest.

They lay there for the next ten minutes, until the next show started.  Alex felt heavy and his breathing was slow, which Oli knew meant he had fallen asleep.  He could just see the edge of Alex’s nose glowing blue in the light of the tv. Unwilling to move and disturb Alex, Oli resigned himself to a night spent on the couch.  He almost whispered an “I love you” into Alex’s hair, but it somehow felt insincere to do it when Alex couldn’t hear him, like he was being sneaky or trying to get away with something.

Oli closed his eyes, feeling his chest get tight.  He really did love Alex, so much he felt like dying sometimes.  He tightened his grip around Alex’s waist.  He didn’t want to let go, to feel like they were any farther apart than pressed together.  He promised himself that in the morning he’d convince Alex to shower, when he was still warm from sleeping and pliable.  For now though, he just let the low murmur of the tv lead him into his dreams.

 

(3)

It felt like his ribs were inverting, his sternum trying to tear out of his throat, choking him.  “Alex, please open the door.”

Oli had come home from the shop to a silent apartment, which made him pause.  Usually the tv would be on, or, although it had become increasingly rare over the last several months, Alex would be playing guitar softly in the other room.  But that was back when Alex was still taking classes, before he’d dropped out right before finals at the end of his second year.  They’d fought about that too.  What was the point of going back to school if he was just going to give up again?

Oli had locked the door and thrown aside his keys.  “Alex?” he’d called curiously.  He was usually home by now.  He always texted if he was working extra hours.

When there was no reply, Oli felt his heart, unbidden, start beating twice as hard as it had a second ago. He didn’t want to think about why. Didn’t want to think about this time last year when he’d come home to a silent apartment and made his way to the bathroom and “Alex?” Oli said again, to the bathroom door.  He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d gotten there.

There was a startled clatter from the other side of the door, and a flurry of heated curses.  “ _What,_ ” Alex said, the word flat and cutting.  The reply sent a wave of relief, cool like water, through Oli’s veins.

Oli put his hand on the doorknob.  It wouldn’t turn.  “I’m home.”

“I gathered.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

There was half a beat during which Oli could hear Alex breathe out through his nose in annoyance. “I’m shaving.  You fucking wanted that right?  Taking care of myself and all.”

“Why is the door locked?”

“Maybe I wanted to be left alone.”

“Alex,” Oli said.  He sounded pleading.  He didn’t know what he was asking for.  He pressed his forehead against the door.  “Can you let me in?”

“Why?”

Oli knew he couldn’t say what he was really thinking.  “I need to piss.”  They could both hear how flat the lie sounded.

Oli could hear Alex sigh in annoyance.  Oli willed him to open up, anxiety welling up in his chest again.  “Alex, please open the door.”

Without warning, the door was flung open.  Oli took a step back in surprise and then pulled himself together.  He quickly took in Alex’s appearance, glanced behind him to see nothing more than his razor lying on the counter next to his shaving cream.

“What, I can’t even shave in peace now?” Alex snapped.  There was a trail of blood on the line of Alex’s jaw, the drop at the end of his chin in danger of falling.

Oli reached out a hand halfway.  “You’re bleeding,” he said helplessly.  He assumed that he’d startled Alex into nicking himself.

Alex’s eyes were hard, his mouth thin.  “Nothing new,” he replied.  His voice was cold and thick, like syrup running through snow.

“I thought you were going to talk to me.”  Even Oli could hear how the words sounded like an accusation.

The corners of Alex’s mouth twitched in annoyance.  “I am. Talking to you.  We’re talking.”

“Alex—”

“Oli.”  The drop of blood wiggled and fell between them.  It was silent for several seconds.  Alex let out his breath.  “Why do you keep trying?”  His voice sounded like it was shattering.

 “I want you to be okay,” Oli said softly.  He swallowed and went on.  “And I know me wanting that won’t automatically make it happen but—but I still want it for you.  For _you._   Not for me.”

Alex stared at Oli for a moment, then looked down and wiped a hand over his jaw.  “I’m bleeding,” he said flatly.  “I should—I should take care of this.”  He turned and walked back to the sink.

Oli followed, walking past Alex and tearing off a couple squares of toilet paper.  He could feel Alex’s eyes on him as he bent down and swiped the blood at the entrance to the bathroom away and threw away the toilet paper. Oli stopped before he walked away and put his hand on the doorframe, looking back at Alex.  Their eyes met in the mirror for half a second before Alex cut his gaze away.

Oli didn’t want to walk away without saying anything, but he didn’t think the  _I love you_ burning his tongue would be very well received.  “I’ll be in the living room,” he said instead.

Alex didn’t say anything, just picked up his razor and started on the other half of his face.

 

(4)

Oli swore, trying to keep the sauce from burning and deal with the water for the noodles boiling over at the same time.  He’d found Alex’s old cookbook, the homemade and much-loved one that used to stay on the counter, pages always falling out.  It had been hidden away on top of the refrigerator, pushed all the way to the back.  Oli had sneezed wiping the dust off and abandoned his deep-clean of the kitchen in favor of making dinner.

Now, he was over an hour into making spaghetti and was almost regretting it.  He’d had to go grocery shopping.  It had been a long time since their pantry and fridge had had anything other than cereal and frozen dinners in them.  Then he’d taken out the battery from the clock that Alex seemed to love so much because it’s incessant ticking was going to drive him insane.  And then he’d had to figure out how to _make_ the damn food.  Alex had always done the cooking for them.

Honestly, Oli was going to put to cookbook right back and ignore that he’d found it.  It had been chance that he’d decided to flip through the pages once.  A heart-shaped sticky note had caught his eye on the page for spaghetti, Alex’s grandma’s recipe, with the words “when he’s had a bad day” scrawled on it.  Oli had frozen, remembering all the tired days and the mess with the lawsuit, all the times Alex had made spaghetti, all the times Oli had twirled his fork through the noodles and tiredly told Alex what was happening and how no one wanted to get tattooed by someone getting sued, all the times that Alex had shushed him and told him to eat his noodles.  Oli wanted to tell Alex to shush and eat _his_ noodles.  Wanted to be to Alex what Alex was to him.  Everything.

It was while Oli was trying to remember if he’d bought any parmesan or not that Alex came home.

He didn’t even realize it at first, not until Alex said, “You’re not usually home yet.”

Oli jumped and nearly dropped the spoon.  “Fuck, Alex you scared me.”

Alex looked over Oli’s bubbling messes slowly.  He opened his mouth, then pressed his tongue to his lip and closed it again.  There were dozens of sentences written on his face. “The burner is on too high,” was the one that finally made it out.

Oli stepped back helplessly as Alex moved in front of the stove.  “I’m no good at this.”

“That’s why _I’m_ in charge of dinner,” Alex said absently, turning down the heat on the sauce.  He paused. “Well.”  He didn’t say anything else, even though his lips formed the start of another word.  Oli knew they were both thinking about the fact that he didn’t make dinner anymore.

“I, uh, bought wine,” Oli said, desperate to break the silence.  He chewed his lip, debating.  “And candles.”

Alex looked over at him out of the corner of his eye.  “Were you worried about the power going out?” he teased.  He almost smiled.  Oli could see it in his eyes.

“I thought I’d put it out myself.”

Alex looked like he wanted to protest for half a second, but the emotion was swallowed back into his expression.  “Wine sounds nice.”

“I found your cookbook,” Oli said, pulling out two wineglasses.  “It was on top of the fridge.  Can you hand me the wine opener?”

Alex placed the corkscrew in his hand.  “Yeah. I put it away.”

“On top of the fridge?” Oli pulled the wine out of the said appliance.

Alex shrugged.  “It wasn’t being used.”  It was the saddest sentence Oli had heard all day.

Oli wanted to tell Alex he loved him, that he was breaking his heart but he owned it anyway.  He pulled the cork out of the wine bottle instead and poured Alex a glass.  “Here.”

Alex tasted the spaghetti sauce and made a face.  “What did you put in here?”

Oli made a helpless gesture. “I don’t really know.”

Rolling his eyes fondly, Alex took a sip of rosé.  “Like I said.  _I’m_ in charge of food.”

“From now on?”

Alex wouldn’t look at Oli. He knew what he was asking.  “We don’t have any groceries.”  A roundabout way of saying no.

“I can— _we_ can go to the store—”

“Oliver.”

Oli shut up.

Dinner was nice, though.

 

(5)

Alex was watching tv while Oli scribbled out tattoo designs in sharpie in his battered sketchbook.

“I’ve been looking into going back to therapy,” Alex said out of nowhere.  Oli’s hand jerked to the side, leaving a line through the middle of the rose he was drawing, petals blackened by tar.  The sentence had sounded artificially casual, like Alex had spent the last hour rehearsing it ten thousand times in his head.

Oli took a breath, willing his voice to be steady.  “Really? For how long?”

“A while.”  Alex wasn’t looking at Oli, instead focusing on his hands as he picked at the cuticle on his middle finger.  He frowned when it started to bleed, looking disappointed in himself, and put it in his mouth to suck on it.

Oli didn’t say anything about it, knowing it wasn’t the time.  He didn’t say anything at all, waiting for Alex to keep speaking.

“I want to get better.” Alex was biting at his pinkie now. Oli reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers together.  Alex’s nervous habits weren’t exactly good ones.  “I, um,” Alex said, louder now, like he was scared, “made an appointment.”

Oli stroked his thumb over Alex’s knuckles, something he knew calmed him down.  “For when?”

“Thursday.”  Alex frowned, fingers twitching.  “Will you drive me?  I don’t want to hit another car.”  A few times when Alex had been in therapy in the past he’d been so lost in whatever he’d been talking about with his therapist that he’d bumped into another car in the parking lot afterwards.

Oli pulled Alex’s hand to his lips and kissed the rose on the back of his hand.  “Yes.  Anything for you.”

Alex finally turned his head to Oli, meeting his eyes.  He looked so vulnerable.  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Good thing you don’t have to worry about figuring it out,” Oli replied.  “I’m never going anywhere.”

They both lay in silence for a moment, listening to the weather forecast for the week.  Oli felt his heart beating so loud he almost wanted to ask Alex if he could hear it.  He could feel Alex’s pulse in his wrist and was reminded of how very much alive the both of them were.  It was overwhelming.  He was overwhelmed.  With Alex, with them, with the headiness of being in love.  Sometimes he thought he’d like to live forever just so he could spend it with Alex.

“I don’t want to go anywhere, either,” Alex said.

It was some time after Oli’s last comment, but Oli still knew what he was saying.  He closed his eyes, willing himself not to cry.  He wanted to say something to Alex, anything, tell him he loved him, but he knew that if he spoke he wouldn’t be able to hold in his tears.  He settled for shifting closer on the bed, biting his lip around a smile when Alex met him halfway and settled into his arms.

“It won’t be a magic, like, recovery,” Alex went on.  He sounded nervous.  “It’s not—it won’t always be good and it will take time and, fuck, I don’t know what I’m saying, but it’s not—it’s not going to be easy, for either of us, and—”

“Alex,” interrupted Oli. “It’s okay.  I’ll wait.  I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.”

Alex took a breath and nodded.  “Okay. Okay.”

“Okay.”

 

(+1)

Alex was laying on Oli’s chest.  He’d cried big wet spots into Oli’s sweater, but Oli didn’t mind.  It was a good cry this time, one of apology and confession and longing.  Alex’s hand was fisted in the knit fabric of Oli’s sweater, like he never wanted to let go again.  He’d been back to therapy for nearly two months now.

They were both silent. Oli was rubbing circles into Alex’s back, feeling the shaky way his body shivered with sobs slowly die down.  They were so close.  Oli could feel every breath Alex took.  He pressed a kiss to the top of his head, closing his eyes and leaving his nose in Alex’s clean hair.  He’d gone back to smelling like himself, not like the ball of grease he’d been for much of the past six months.

Oli could feel the breath Alex took before he spoke.  “You, um, last year.”

“Mmhmm,” Oli hummed, waiting.

“Last year you asked me to marry you.”

Oli’s hand froze for half a second before it continued circling.  “Yes.  You said no.”

“I know,” Alex said. He almost sounded regretful.  “I said I, um, didn’t want to be married.” He pressed his face farther into Oli’s chest.  “I really just didn’t want you to be married to someone who would be dead by the end of the year.”

“You made it past the end of the year,” Oli breathed.  He still considered it a miracle.

“I know,” Alex said. He took another breath.  “And I just.  I wanted to tell you that—that I wouldn’t, um.  Mind.  You asking me to marry you again.  Eventually,” he added.

Oli pressed another kiss to the top of Alex’s head.  “I wouldn’t mind it either.”  He was trying to stay calm, to not freak Alex out, but on the inside he felt like he was made of stardust and cosmic light.  He couldn’t remember being this happy in six months.

“I don’t deserve you,” Alex confessed.  His voice sounded thick again.

“Yes you do,” Oli murmured. “Yes you do.”  Alex squeezed his arms tighter around Oli.  “I love you,” Oli told him, feeling so much hope and so much contentment.  “I’m in love with you.”

“I love you too,” Alex said, sounding choked up again.  He tilted his head up so he could look Oli in the eye.  “So much.”

“I want to spend forever with you,” Oli declared.

Alex smiled, teeth and everything.  It was the prettiest thing Oli had ever seen.  “I’d like that.”


End file.
